Because the 'order in the list' usually is the creation order of the items. If you want to change the tasks order, you need to save the position numbers in the database.
This is not specific to Google tasks. If you tried to display a list of items that your users could reorder, you'd run into the same problem.
Thanks. You could also recreate the list with the new ordering; or record the changes in list order and replay them on server (e.g. insert the 5th one after the 2nd one), perhaps even reducing it to the simplest change if the user played around with the order a lot.
But I guess for RDB (and other DB?), the "physical" order isn't meant to be used as a "logical" order, and it might not even be reliable - so you need some other ordering mechanism, like position numbers. Also, not good if anything in the system depends on that physical ordering.
Comments
Because the 'order in the list' usually is the creation order of the items. If you want to change the tasks order, you need to save the position numbers in the database.
This is not specific to Google tasks. If you tried to display a list of items that your users could reorder, you'd run into the same problem.
Thanks. You could also recreate the list with the new ordering; or record the changes in list order and replay them on server (e.g. insert the 5th one after the 2nd one), perhaps even reducing it to the simplest change if the user played around with the order a lot.
But I guess for RDB (and other DB?), the "physical" order isn't meant to be used as a "logical" order, and it might not even be reliable - so you need some other ordering mechanism, like position numbers. Also, not good if anything in the system depends on that physical ordering.
\not a DB programmer